December 4th — Holiday Spirit

Are gift cards really all that great?

 I am one of those people who does not like gift cards. I know, not the common opinion. There I go again being odd. I can deal with that. Maybe you might see my side after I tell you why.

 I don’t like giving them because it seems impersonal, seems to commercial. For holidays I give gifts that I put effort into thinking you might love. I give gift cards on those rare times I can’t think of anything, I don’t honestly know you well, or when I know someone might be in real need for cash. I don’t see the point in giving a gift card to someone who does not need it instead of giving a person thought out gift.

 I know the other side of this though I promise I do. I know that some people want to pool them together for a bigger gift than any one person could get them. I know that some people say they don’t want “junk” or something they would need to return.

 However my counter to that when Grandma, best friend, cousin, dies (and they will) will you remember that $20 they gave you one year or would you remember that really odd vase that the person thought you should have? Give yourself and your loved ones a little more credit, Maybe you can make those items work for you or be polite enough to be thankful that person even bothered and try to find another home for the item. Yes that takes effort….But this is life, life is effort and I really think that life is about relationships, not stuff, not gift cards, not cash. Those items though might hold memories that a gift card never will and that has value.

 We need to remember why many of the great holidays of this season started so long ago, why they even gave gifts. The winters where a time of so little, the nights so long, and people starved and froze and died. So on the longest night of the year people gathered together, huddled, and sang and spent that time together in hope that the sun would come up and that the nights would get shorter. The gifts where not the focus and often they where of real needs, not wants. I know traditions have changed, but I don’t have to like how commercial it all is.

 I believe spirit of the holidays is the message that we are not alone, have hope.